On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 13:23:14 +0100, "Mike Lyle" wrote:

The author was describing a friend's kitchen, and referred to a
demijohn of "bee wine" on the windowsill, with, s/he said, a dead bee
going up and down in it. Have you got more detail?

I dont recollect ever having seen a _real_ bee ( dead or otherwise or
dead-drunk) in them, I have always assumed that it was so called cos
it was always busy with activity as in busy bees buzzing about and
doing good work etc,
( and "fly yeast" wouldn't have sounded so nice !! )
I suspect that the dead bee tale is suspect.
And they were usually large general purpose glass jars, like in pickle
jars, not demi-johns. Didnt those catch on much later ? Or maybe only
richer households out of my ken had pucker johns ?


(Was it Katherine Whitehorn's _Cooking in a Bedsitter_ ? How we've
travelled on since then!)

Just so !
ere hang on half a mo. I think I still have that in the library,,,,,,